Transport Committee on Oct. 28th, 2025

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

That is somewhat my question, correct. You have admitted there is a difference between the two models in financial terms. In the case of an employee, the employer had to pay one portion of the pension to the existing pension plan, with the employee paying the other portion. In the case of a self-employed worker, it is not necessarily automatic.

The same thing goes for employment insurance. You said in your opening remarks that signing up for employment insurance was not automatic. In fact, it is voluntary for self-employed workers. However, in the case of an employee, one portion is paid by the employer and another portion is paid by the employee. In the case of a self-employed worker, it is 0%. For vacation pay, you don't get any when you are a self-employed worker. However, when you are a company and you have employees, you have to set a portion of money aside. It costs you money, in fact, because it is a reserve set aside for that vacation pay. So these three items are costs to the employer, but a self-employed worker will not receive them. Is that it?

[Gurpreet Chatwal]

Yes, that is correct. Under an employment, the employer does have to pay the employer portion of the CPP. They also have to pay the employer portion of EI, which is 1.4 times the EI of the employee. Under the Driver Inc. model, the driver has the option to pay CPP and has the option to pay EI.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you.

What you say confirms that there is a financial difference between hiring an employee and hiring a self-employed worker, one who works for themselves. That operational difference will be reflected in the operational costs. Those expenses, which the employer does not have, give the employer a direct advantage in terms of operations, billing and competitiveness it can get out of this.

I would like to raise another point. You said that tax evasion is not connected with the models. So I would like to ask you some questions about this T4A that so much is said about. What does the Canada Revenue Agency do, for taxing people? It does it based on the tax slips issued by organizations, which alert the CRA that a wage has been paid. If I earn an annual wage of $50,000 or $100,000 and I do not declare any income, my T4 means that the CRA is going to let me know it has received a T4 slip from my employer and I have to pay the appropriate tax on the income I earned. Since 2011, however, self-employed workers have no longer received T4A slips. That means that the Canada Revenue Agency has no information about income earned or the tax that should be paid by that organization.

Is that true or false?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Please answer in ten seconds, because we are already a minute over Mr. Barsalou‑David's speaking time.

Give a 10-second response please, and perhaps it will have to wait until Mr. Barsalou-Duval has the floor once again.

[Gurpreet Chatwal]

There's a lot that's been said. I would like to answer your first part about the CPP and EI.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Because there isn't much time left, I would prefer that you focus on the T4A slip.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Let's wait until Mr. Barsalou-Duval has the floor once again, and then we'll allow you to provide a more fulsome response, Mr. Chatwal.

Next, we'll move to Mr. Lawrence.

Mr. Lawrence, the floor is yours, and you have five minutes, sir.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Thank you.

My questions will be for you, Mr. Webb, and I'll be building on the earlier discussion you had with my colleague Mr. Lewis.

Mr. Webb, we heard some compelling testimony with the previous panel. The Insurance Bureau said that claims were up in Ontario by 80% and in Alberta by 88%, and that the amount of those claims, the quantum of claims, also dramatically increased and far outstripped population growth and the growth in trucking.

Clearly there's a significant issue, and this is a new issue. It has to be because this rise is relatively new. It started in 2015, and that's to 2023. As someone who is a professional involved in auditing the safety of this industry, could you give us some thoughts or some speculation as to why there's this dramatic increase?

[Edward Webb]

Fatigue is one of the biggest problems. The people who are running the companies don't know anything about the fatigue. I'll get to the other part of that, which is that nobody is investigating correctly these incidents that are happening. They not looking—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

I apologize, Mr. Webb.

I'm just curious. The fatigue was likely an issue before 2015, and we didn't see this dramatic spike. You don't have to be an investigator to realize that something new has occurred or likely has occurred. I'm just wondering what that might be.

[Edward Webb]

For me, it's the root cause. They're not looking internally at what causes these incidents. The trucking company does not look to see what's causing the incident. From that, you can stop the incidents from happening again. I see that as a huge problem.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

I understand that, Mr. Webb. I'm not disputing anything you're saying.

This is a relatively new phenomenon. Within the last 10 years, there's been this dramatic increase. I've quite frankly seen it anecdotally, in addition to empirical evidence, in my riding. In Cobourg, there's an area where the 401 snakes a little bit. It is not unusual for there to be a transport truck that's gone off the road there.

This didn't happen five or 10 years ago. It's backed up by the empirical evidence of an 80% increase in Ontario and 88% in Alberta over the last 10 years, which has greatly outstripped the growth in transportation and the population growth.

Is there anything that you can point to that was different in 2023 from it was in 2015? If you can't, that's fine. It's more than fair.

[Edward Webb]

There's a whole bunch of information out there. It's the training of the drivers, getting licences or buying a licence, so the driver doesn't know....

We, in Canada, allow somebody to come to the country and after six months, they go to school and get a class 1 licence. They have no driving experience, period, but we put them behind a wheel of a 90,000 pound unit.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

This is where I wanted to go to next.

Let's say that someone wants to become a transport truck driver tomorrow. Could you walk through for the committee what the process would be to obtain one and get yourself into the cab?

[Edward Webb]

First of all, you have get to your learner's or go to a school for your MELT program. They would have to find a legitimate school, hopefully. They go in, apply, pay and do their training courses.

Depending on the province, it's 103 to 113 hours. Then there is the driving portion of that, which I feel is very limited. From there, hopefully, they have enough knowledge or the areas that they lack in are corrected before they do their road exam, which is another problem. From what I'm hearing in the industry—and I can't verify—drivers are taught how to pass the exam, but not how to actually drive. That becomes a significant problem as well.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

I am the shadow minister for interprovincial trade, and you did raise my curiosity with respect to the differences.

I know that you are more responsible for Alberta and Ontario, so let's just use those as an example. Is there a wide difference between the education or the training requirements for our truck drivers from coast to coast?

[Edward Webb]

There's not a wide variety, but there's definitely a difference. I can speak to a lot of differences.

Some of the schools are allowing drivers to sit in the cab with another driver and they get all the same hours as the guy driving, so that's a problem inside the schools. They're just not regulated enough to keep the drivers trained correctly and for the schools to train them correctly. We see it every day.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Webb, for an excellent conversation. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Next, we go back to Mr. Gaheer.

The floor is yours for five minutes, sir.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Mr. Chatwal, let's pick up where we left off.

I want to ask the same question, but maybe in a different way.

At this committee, we've discussed that potentially there is a tax issue when we talk about incorporated drivers. What are the chances that there are incorporated drivers who are not reporting their income or are reporting a false income when they file taxes?

[Gurpreet Chatwal]

Just to be fair, the T4A question has been raised a few times. It should be fair and consistent across all self-employed businesses. Why focus on just one industry, requiring T4A there and not for all self-employed incorporated businesses?

If you're saying that tax evasion is in this industry and you have evidence to support that, then absolutely the T4A would allow you to deter any tax evasion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Mr. Chatwal, I'm going to ask you to speak closer to the mic, if you could, just for the benefit of our interpreters, who are doing a phenomenal job.

[Gurpreet Chatwal]

I apologize.

The T4A is a mechanism that definitely helps to avoid any tax evasion, because it's income that's mandatorily required to be reported to the Canada Revenue Agency. The Canada Revenue Agency has a matching principle, where they go on the back end and check that any income that's reported in box 48 is in compliance with the revenue that's reported.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Making the T4A mandatory for this particular industry could increase tax revenue for the government, but this is just one industry. I'm a lawyer—for example. Lawyers, plumbers or anyone who has an incorporation could potentially be reporting a false income.

[Gurpreet Chatwal]

Absolutely.